East Tennessee Residential Communities : Holrob Communities : Private Communities near Knoxville, Knox County, Blount County, Anderson County, Sevier County

A recent article in the Knoxville News Sentinel featured Blackberry Farm's artisan cheese maker and his award-winning cheeses - yet another reason to visit this beautiful resort tucked into the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains!

Photo by markalbert.

Located 25 miles from Knoxville and 32 miles from Gatlinburg, Blackberry Farm's home is in Walland, a small community in Tennessee's historic Blount County. The Farm, founded over 30 years ago, has been featured in Food & Wine and Travel & Leisure magazines, among others. If you are looking for a romantic and relaxing get-away, this is it!

The estate's 4,200-acres boast award-winning accommodations, gourmet meals, an 8,000-square-foot wine cellar, grape, apple, nut, and berry gardens and orchards - including truffles! - and, of course, those artisan cheeses. Among Blackberry Farm's numerous awards are the 2006 Wine Spectator Grand Award, Condé Nast's 2005 award for #1 Service in the US; and Southern Living's 2006 award, America's #1 Country Inn. Visitors can also enjoy a variety of enrichment opportunities throughout the year, including a cooking school, wine courses, and numerous outdoors and adventure activities.

But what about that cheese? The cheese maker, Kristian Holbrook, describes his process in the News Sentinel article mentioned above, as well as a recent Blackberry Farm demonstration event, the "Glorious Cheese Epicurean Experience," where visitors were able to attend a "hands-on cheese-making class."Holbrook crafts four types of cheese from milk collected from his flock of 180 sheep. The cheeses are aged on-site and then made available for use and purchase at Blackberry Farm and at the Maryville Farmer's Market. Holbrook recently entered and won third place with his "Singing Brook" cheese "in the "aged sheep's milk" category at the 25th annual Conference and Cheese Competition in Chicago."

What a great way to relax and enjoy region's unique beauty! With a short drive to Knoxville, Maryville, Gatlinburg, and the Smoky Mountains, Blackberry Farm is the perfect place to stay while sampling the charm of East Tennessee. Want more information? Contact us.

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There's something magical about a blinking bug. The firefly has been a part of many childhoods, a dusk-to-dark distraction for little ones who hop about, filling mason jars to make twinkling lanterns. The Smoky Mountains are fortunate to have 14 species of fireflies, including the only species in the United States that can "synchronize their flashing light patterns." No one knows why these flies synchronize but the effect is otherworldly. For the observer, it looks something like this: "One moment, the forested slope above the clearing would be dark - cavernously dark.  Then, suddenly, a few flashes would appear off to the right, and like a fuse, they seemed to set off a chain reaction.  In a diffuse and unruly wave, thousands of flashes would appear from right to left across the field of vision, lighting up the entire forest in an eerie green light.  It was as if the world’s largest chain of blinking Christmas lights had been turned on and then was suddenly unplugged again.  The forest would return to that deep, cavernous dark for a few seconds… then… a few flashes occurred off to the right and the cycle would repeat itself."

Photo by jamelah.

It's such a beautiful sight that the two mid-June weeks of firefly synchrony have become a busy Smoky Mountain attraction. As one of only two places in the world where such a spectacle can be seen (the other is in Southeast Asia), the event draws around 2,000 people each weekend night to the site near Elkmont in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Folks spread their blankets and open lawn chairs, maybe pic-nic a bit while the kids squirm in excitement for the start of the show. Then it does and even the little ones are transfixed. Writes Matt Wasson: "As the blue twilight faded toward darkness and dozens of blinking lights became hundreds – and then thousands - the din of conversation gradually faded into a quiet undercurrent of whispers and gasps of wonder." Just one more reason to love East Tennessee.

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As East Tennessee is within a short driving distance to Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Middle Tennessee, the sky’s the limit on one’s recreational and entertainment choices. In as little as an hour and a half, East Tennesseans can access some of the most creative cities and the most beautiful scenery in the United States. A particularly enjoyable destination is North Carolina’s Asheville located just 115 miles from Knoxville.



Listed by Frommer’s as a Top Ten Travel Destination for 2007, Asheville is a beautiful, friendly, and culturally interesting city with a population of about 70,000. Once a pioneering town, today Asheville is well-known for its fantastic restaurants (local favorites include The Laughing Seed, Salsa’s, and the Early Girl Eatery, among others), shopping (everything from local artwork to rare books), quaint bed & breakfast inns, and numerous historic sites, including the Biltmore House, the largest privately owned home in the United States.

Designed by Richard Morris Hunt for George Vanderbilt in the late 1800s, the Biltmore House’s four acres of floor space contains more than 250 rooms, 65 fireplaces, a swimming pool, countless pieces of art and antiques, and even a bowling alley! The Biltmore Estate spans 8,000 acres offering visitors beautiful gardens designed by Fredrick Law Olmstead; a winery that hosts behind-the-scene tours and wine tastings; a number of top notch restaurants; biking, hiking, fishing, and other outdoor activities; and a luxury inn.



Speaking of inns, The Grove Park Inn is another must-see for Asheville visitors. Opening in 1913, The Grove Park Inn has hosted such famous guests as F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Harry Houdini, Will Rogers, George Gershwin, Thomas Edison, Eleanor Roosevelt and Henry Ford. Not to mention eight presidents — from Woodrow Wilson to George Bush.”  Whether or not you book a room, The Grove Park offers fine dining in several restaurants; spa treatments for men and women; a number of lounges; and a golf course that “Golfweek magazine included in its 2005 “America’s Best” listings and Golf Digest named in 2004 as “one of the ten best courses in the United States that is 100 years old or more.”

Asheville is such a wonderful and exciting destination, it’s no wonder that AmericanStyle named it second out of America’s Top 25 Small Town Arts Destinations in 2006, while MSNBC named Asheville second of Top 10 Easy Spring Weekend Getaways in 2007 and Outside Magazine promises that Asheville is the Best Southern Town (2007). For more Asheville area rankings visit Asheville’s Chamber of Commerce.

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One doesn’t travel the southern stretch of US Highway 129 unintentionally. It’s not likely you’ll accidentally stumble upon it, in fact, most traveling through Maryville, TN, on Highway 411 pass the turn onto 129 without even a glance. Rather, those who take 129 tend to do so with intent, knowing that they will be rewarded with the most beautiful scenery and most thrilling, even legendary, rides to be experienced in the United States.



Approximately 20 miles into the journey one will encounter the famous Dragon. The Dragon, or The Tail of the Dragon, is an eleven-mile section of 129 at Deal’s Gap right at the North Carolina border. What makes this stretch of road so spectacular is that there are 318 turns, more turns than any other stretch of road in the U.S.! The whipping and twisting of the road make the journey a must-do for car and motorcycle enthusiasts as they navigate turns such as The Switchbacks, Rebel’s Revenge, The Pearly Gates, and The Beginner’s End. But even for the average-speed car tourist, like myself, the ride is as exciting as any I’ve even experienced.

From the Tennessee side, the beginning of US 129 is a tour of the rural: farmhouses, barns, and mom and pop stores dot the way making the early stretch of 129 feel less like a highway than an old country road. After several miles, however, the farms give way to forest and that’s where the fun begins. Through the mountains, 129 travelers are actually following the path of an old Indian trail, the first settlers in the aggressive peaks and valleys. While electrical development began in the area in the mid-1910s with the construction of the Cheoah Dam and powerhouse, it wasn’t until 1931 that 129 opened the way for folks to cross from TN into NC by way of Deal’s Gap. Today, the National Park Service maintains most of the land around 129 as the Great Smoky Mountains, the Nantahala National Forest, and the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest.

While the beauty of the forest and the whipping of The Dragon’s Tail would be sufficient to entice travelers, every so often the trees give way to such sights as the Dragon Overlook, a beautiful, mountaintop pull off with a view of the river and valley far below. A bit farther and clearings offer breathtaking lakes, river views, and bridges – a collection of manmade marvels and nature’s best.

US 129 ends about 10 miles south of Robbinsville, NC, but day-trippers usually stop at the Deal’s Gap Motorcycle Resort (about 18 miles north of Robbinsville) for refreshments before heading home. On the other hand, if you want to make it a weekend, consider continuing on to the Highlands in NC by way of Franklin. The Highlands is a historic little town situated at over 4,000 feet in elevation. While there are ample hiking, rafting, biking, and other opportunities, the Highland’s downtown offers a cozy and upscale resort of antique dealers, high-end restaurants, bed and breakfast inns, and a historic restored Old Edwards Inn. The laid-back nature of this getaway make this the perfect place to rejuvenate before having to, once again, slay the Dragon.

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